Humiliation Has a Sound — By Andrew Fisher

artwork by Daniel Finaldi

‍ 2009 — University of Louisville Hospital

Dr. Chebl said stroke. Not the kind you live through. He said basilar artery occlusion. He said the artery that keeps Andrew awake is blocked. He said I can try to pull out the clot.

He said Try.

He said Andrew could come out worse.

He said Andrew could die.

The room went quiet in that way rooms do when the word die has nowhere else to go. Machines kept speaking. My body kept failing.

They’re talking about me.

Not to me.

A doctor. A brother. O.R. being prepped—now. “It’s his only chance.” “Sign here. You’re consenting for him.”

I could no longer speak. I couldn’t even move. I wasn’t ready. But a choice was made for me.

Humiliation has a sound. It’s the hose taped to my mouth—the soft mechanical pull doing what my body no longer can. It clears my throat. It swallows what should have been words. Air goes in. Fluid goes out. The machine speaks for me in wet, rhythmic sighs. I try to form a sentence. What comes instead is a low sound—the kind that carries no meaning, only need.

Two nurses enter. They don’t look at me. They don’t know I’m awake. They talk about vacation plans as they unlock the wheels and roll me into the hallway. Fluorescent lights pass overhead—

white flash.

white flash.

white flash.

The wheels click over floor tiles. They speak to each other as if I can’t hear them. To them, I am sleeping with my eyes open. I am furniture with a pulse.

But I am aware—of tape tugging at my skin, of breath borrowed and returned, of every inch of this bed moving without my consent. And I am still here.

I don’t think, Why me? I think, Why not? I had my own choice once. I chose it.

I think of my boys. Hands too small to carry this weight. Their minds will fill. They’ll be handed a story. And it won’t be mine.

Humiliation has a sound. It’s someone else holding the last word.

They wheel me into a room I didn’t choose. Doctors already there—gloved, masked, waiting.  

A table. A blue sheet.    

Blue. The last color I will wear.

My boys do not know what blue means.

Andrew Fisher is an emerging nonfiction writer based in Indiana, where he is raising twin boys as a solo parent. A stroke survivor and advocate who has spoken before congressional members on Capitol Hill, his work explores trauma, inherited silence, and the quiet courage it takes to break generational cycles. His writing centers on showing up—especially when presence is all you can give—and is drawn from a completed memoir-in-progress.